Thursday, April 19, 2007

Remember the infamous "redacted documents"? The ones supplied by the Dept of Finance to prove Flaherty's claims of tax leakage? The ones that have all the numbers blacked out? The ones that have been around the internet a few million times?

Well, it turns out that even these heavily censored documents are too sensitive for public eyes, and the Dept of Finance has asked Calgary financial analyst Gordon Tait and others who received them to send them back!

That's right, these documents are so embarassing, oops I mean "secret", that they are to be returned to whence they came. I wonder if it would be okay if we emailed them back?

I have just one question about this. Is this the same "New Government" that was going to be all about accountability and transparency? Hmmm.... it seems pretty transparent to me that it's more about secrecy and hiding the truth.

1 comment:

It's very strange--for a government to make the mistake of putting a state secret into the public domain. Well, people are people; so, someone made an untoward judgment call (as happened in the 6th game of the 2004 Grail final but the refs blew it thereby costing the Flames the game and series.) The real mistake is that the government admitted it made a mistake. A government must never do that.

What could have been so compelling that this government was forced to humble itself? The damage has been done. Why make it worse by admitting lack of intelligence or due diligence? I have a speculative answer. Justice expects Finance to get sued. By re-stating the blacked-out document as a state secret, Finance has given the government lawyers a basis for claiming that the courts cannot look at any evidence (good thing because the Honourable Minister from Whitby County does not have any empirically verifiable evidence) relating to how the Minister’s decided that there was tax leakage.

But now the mystery thickens. Why does Justice figure that Finance will get sued? Ostensibly, because of the outlandish behaviour of the Honourable Minister from Whitby County. But what in particular? Did the minister break securities legislation? With SEC in the US perhaps? Or is an actionable tort? As might be found if there was malicious use of false information to cause expected harm and loss? Or was it a breach of the Charter?

EVENTS

Income Trust Halloween VigilThanks to all who participated in both the Ottawa and Calgary vigils to mark the anniversary of the announcement.

WE"D LIKE SOME ANSWERS

As you well know, the ‘income trust thing’ has grown beyond the
question of whether fair taxes are paid on income from trusts. It’s
become a giant dirty snowball, and as it rolls forward it accumulates
more and more bulk. There are so many unanswered questions. Let's list a few and invite our "Accountable" government and our free press to provide some much-needed answers.

It is said “Trusts are inefficient use of capital. Why?” Two
related questions are ‘Whose money is it, anyway?’, and ‘Do Canadian
investors have a free and efficient market?’

How can information that is already in the public domain at SEDAR
make for a state secret? How could such information be used to harm
the Canadian national interest? And who would cause the harm?

Why won’t the Canadian media investigate the falsehoods and
misrepresentations told by the Minister of Finance to a committee of
Parliament? Was the Minister in contempt of Parliament?

Why won’t the Canadian media report (a) government tax revenues
gained from BCE in 2006 when BCE was a corporation to (b) government
tax revenues that would be gained in 2007 from BCE, if BCE had been
allowed to proceed to a trust, and (c) government tax revenues that
will be gained in 2007 from BCE, when BCE ownership has been carved
up as 45% foreign ownership and 55% large Canadian pension fund
ownership?